Western Cape property most attractive
Category Market
The Western Cape was the only province to have more property buyers than sellers in 2010, suggesting good economic growth, according to the FNB Inter-provincial Home Buyer Migration Monitor released on Thursday. The Western Cape was the only province to have more people buying property than selling property in 2010. "The Western Cape's 2010 net migration performance is 'more of the same', with the province having had the best net inward migration for the past decade as a whole," said John Loos, strategist at FNB Home Loans, in a statement. Net migration refers to repeat property buyers entering a province minus those departing. Gautengcame in second with a slight net outbound migration rate of -1.1 percent. "The Western Cape and Gauteng were the only provinces that saw some improvement in their net migration rates in 2010," said Loos. "This would suggest in part that the best economic recovery has taken place around these two major economies regions, while also probably reflective of corporate consolidation of certain activities around head offices (largely based in the two major provinces) in tough economic times of recent years." Globalinsight estimates for the decade 2000-2009 showed the Western Cape had the best provincial annual real economic growth rate of 4.4 percent, followed closely by Gauteng with 4.3 percent, Loos said. "Therefore, the country's two major provincial economies, Gauteng and the Western Cape, appear to be leading the race to attract and retain skilled labour, with the Western Cape appearing significantly better off than Gauteng too," he said. "These two regions lead the others in terms of economic opportunity, the key driver of skills migration, while the Western Cape has the added advantage of a higher perceived quality of life." The smaller provinces had the worst rates of outbound migration, with Limpopo the highest at 33.6 percent of its total repeat buying, followed by Mpumalanga on 32 percent. - Sapa
Author: Sapa - via Property24.com
